Monday, June 19, 2017

As the week draws near & we are expecting the arrival of baby soon, i cannot help but be affected by the many things i have to sacrifice.

I have known for a long time that i tend to be a straight forward & strong-minded woman who feels that i am better off not being bonded by financial woes, and as such never really jump into the bandwagon of taking cash from Rodman for starting a family as well as making sure i always am bounded by a stable job so i can contribute & used my money like i deem worth.

There are definitely times i question my ability to lead a happy life like that of a handful close girlfriends who seemingly embrace being full-time mum & cherishing whatever amount their husbands extend to them, just being glad that they are getting by. Then i know i will not be happy limiting my freedom to whatever is being extended to me, knowing i have the ability to ask for more & enjoy more.

For a long time coming, as long as Rodman & i contribute diligently to the monthly joint bank account we share then i feel that we are saving good & in preparation for bigger things. Then came our home that we now lived in for the past 6 months, where we take matters into our hands & make major financial decision that painfully deplete our savings to a new low. However it is no use holding back on those drawstrings as we need quality stuff to live by. Generally, i do like to think that we were lucky that we secure much good deals, both onlines & through the goodwill of people we were grateful to. Back then, when Rodman commented that he didnt see his personal savings rising like it used to, clearly i had to do something & made him take into account that we were now at the mercy of our own savings & trying to build a comfortable roof over our head & surely, changes such as lowered expectation of personal savings is inevitable. But lo & behold, as i am the free spirit person i always am when it comes to the theory of "if it ain't broken , dont fix it" i didnt comment much, and only empathize by commenting how i felt the same towards my bank account.

Then come this day, now that we are less than 10 weeks away from the arrival of another spendthrift (no i dont mean it that way, but surely raising a kid means more money out your pocket hence the reference). Unfortunately i took on the role of making sure we path our way ahead with more expectation in mind, and having said that, started Rodman on the "discussion/argument/opinionated heated fight" over what is about to come our way. Here, we are about to embrace changes as new parents which also meant we were soon to start paying for an extra mouth, extra expenses such as milk powder, diapers & food. How are we going to cope with this? Is it ok that i deplete my savings since i dont earn as much as my husband? How are we going to split this responsibilities? Is he committed to splitting the cost of baby living between me & him 50-50?

I know i should have started the whole conversation on a light note, but so far attempts to mention this has been futile as we wind up concluding the conversation with thoughts about how we have to start tightening our pocket & be more mindful of the expense we occur. That..... is something neither of us are willing to part ways with.

Can i just say, at this point i feel that the biggest victim is the baby living inside me? On how selfish (instead of selfless) i felt we have both been as adults who decide now was the time to welcome a new member to our family? I wish i had the mentality that my girlfriends have lead me onto believing that i will eventually come to terms with? I wish when they mention "soon, you will realize it is all worth it!" meant giving up on dining with girlfriends at exquisite expensive diners, or giving up on chilling with the girls & instead head for home so i will reduce any chances of spurging on myself while they shop for clothes at the mall. I wish when they say that they are thankful for the handout (allowance, allowance, allowance... ) their husband pass them monthly, meant that they have way enough to feed the baby, the babysitter, the lost sleep, the lost of appetite, the housework, the all-in-a-day work without air-conditioned environment until bedtime. I wish when they carry the baby & meitu-xiuxiu the pictures before posting them on social media, meant that they are done with a day work & their husbands are not working so hard to give good living & that their marriage are never about financial woes & disagreement.

And then there are selfish person like me, who declare that once i set aside possible expense for my baby, i will be left with close to none savings in my bank account. but it will all be alright because it meant that i have the comfort & support of my trusted family to help take care of the baby while i continue to motivate myself to work for the society in return for salary to continue my current expenditure & also to be responsible to the baby i brought to the world. Then i failed to realize this meant Rodman will soon see depleting sum in his personal savings & we are both just uncomfortable with this idea because he was the man who was always full of assurance of a secure & safe living & also the person i can count back on if things failed at my side. Without the steady rise in the his personal savings all of a sudden he faced all the uncertainties which directly affect me because we are both used to him being the pillar of our marriage.

At this point i wish i can stay strong & assure him nothing changes, but the truth is everything changes. Proven up till june now that we are living away from our families and his obvious halt in personal savings. I also contemplate ((not really.. i have already decided i will start)) spending lesser on myself so i can ease the burden for us both. I am not mentally strong on this one yet cos i have known myself to spend lesser than the people i generally know, but it only meant now that i have to be even stricter on myself (a.k.a illtreating) but thats something to worry for another day.

Why wont things fast track further so we will both now be accustom to the new lifestyle we can adopt with the baby? perhaps by then i will laugh this off at how silly this all sound becuase we didnt wind up spending too much afterall? It is also a good time to tell me now how childish i have been in believing that raising a kid wont cost us much, becuase it will & our plans for the next 10 years are soon to change big time, and whats with the silly plan to raise another siblings in the next 2 years? i can barely breathe 2 months prior to my first-born.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

These days there are numerous times i have felt like my stomach is rolling in the deep, ready to throw a bad diarrhea but furtile attempts. I googled if these were symptoms of the baby rolling or kicking in the stomach but apparently they werent quite the same thing. The advice on the internet says to lookout for fluttery feeling in the stomach but God knows how that feel cos i havent ate a butterfly before. It suck that each times i thought i felt what must have been a movement in the tummy only to be called false alarm by Rodman who, despite placing his palm on the tummy numerous times did not feel a slightest "nudge" like he said he should.

Seriously, i think that man thought we are feeding a Monster & movement is supposedly a obvious palm stetch into my tummy, Baby is on the size of a banana hello?!~ Of course, he was naturally upset that he didnt felt the baby moved & most times i brush it off saying i wasnt sure if it was baby movement afterall, so maybe not. I guess we both haven confirmed we have felt the baby moved yet?

I am starting to get all kinds of weird illness but each time i want to start worrying about it, i put off the idea as soon as they fall into the category of "pregnant symptoms". Migraine be the bane of my life, then comes flu (sinus, real sinus like block nose & watery tear duct) & all that going to bed feeling like i have been stuck in a drought yet not allowing myself any water for the fear of water retention. There have been 2 episodes that i teared so far, just plain tired at hearing or accepting all the unneccessary comment that comes my way.

Should the topic of pregnancy be limit to only positive ^& congratulatory comments? Because most of those i received are really unnecessary!!!!

I especially detest comments made by "those who had been there" - there is a lot to take in during this time, i dont care if you ever limit urself to only warm water all through your pregnancy (your baby is whining non-stop for ice at the very moment you "advise" me to abstain from cold drinks. You deprive yourself the luxury to enjoy the pregnancy but that doesnt give you the right to deprive mine. I clearly dont take it well to your advise WITHOUT a reasonable explanation so please keep the comment to yourself already.